Legendary broadcaster Ted Koppel pressed Steve Bannon four separate times in a new interview to concede that President Donald Trump has slipped, and Bannon refused every time.
In an interview that aired on CBS Sunday Morning, Koppel, the 86-year-old former Nightline anchor and current CBS News senior contributor, first raised the subject about 15 minutes in, telling Bannon flatly, “The president quite clearly has lost a step or two.”
“Oh, I don’t agree with that,” Bannon shot back, insisting Trump was “working 20 hours a day.”
Koppel wasn’t buying it, however. A few minutes later, he returned with a baseball metaphor: “Trump has lost his fastball. He’s not as quick as he used to be.”
When Bannon asked why he’d say that, Koppel replied, “I say that because I see what he looks like,” adding, “I don’t think Americans have ever been quite as embarrassed by their president as they have been by Donald Trump.”
Bannon dismissed that as the view of the media and the “East Coast elite.”
Koppel then invoked former President Joe Biden, noting that Democrats took heat for not confronting him once it was clear age had caught up with him. “Some of that is happening with President Trump,” Koppel said. “And I don’t hear anything from Steve Bannon about Trump losing a step or two.”
Bannon pivoted to what he called a “very clear anti-Trump” bias inside Fox News and the GOP establishment, insisting Trump is “nowhere close to what Biden was” and remains “at the top of his powers.”
Koppel tried once more, telling Bannon that “at some point, you have to acknowledge” Trump’s decline.
Bannon laughed. “I don’t acknowledge that,” he said, adding that if he saw it, “I would tell you, yes, he’s lost a step.”
Earlier in the interview, Bannon called himself “the leader of trying to get President Trump to run for a third term,” though he conceded “it appears that he’s not interested or it just won’t happen.” Asked about the 22nd Amendment, which bars a third term, Bannon claimed, “You could drive a truck through that amendment.”
He went further still, putting Trump alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. “I can’t believe that you’re mentioning Trump in the same breath,” Koppel said.
Trump turned 80 in June, and questions about his cognitive state and memory have mounted for months. He would be 82 at the end of his term.